Customers reach out to Cisco Services because they have confidence in our skills and abilities. One way we build that confidence for our customers—and for ourselves—is through certifications and specialization.

As we study for certifications, we gain confidence in our understanding and abilities to execute in our areas of study.

As we test our knowledge against known standards, we prove competency, which also improves our self-confidence.

As the networking industry evolves, the role of the Network Consulting Engineer (NCE) also must evolve. Gone are the days of configuring and managing a large-scale network via command-line interface. Read More »

We are so excited that for the second year in a row, Cisco Small Business has been chosen as a Top 100 Small Business Influencer.

Ved Sharma, Dir/GM, Cisco SMB Services states, “I could not be prouder of our teams whose combined efforts continue to make Cisco Small Business products and services an industry-leading preference for our customers. Our focus on reaching the Small Business community via Facebook, Twitter and other social media avenues helps us to engage with and communicate to small and mid-sized companies. ”

The Small Business Influencer Awards are presented to those who are influential to small businesses in North America, through the products, services, knowledge, information or support they provide to the small business market.

The Champions are selected by a panel of judges steeped in the small business market, based on the following criteria;

advocating on behalf of small businesses,

providing products or services that address the unique challenges faced by small businesses,

revolutionizing how small businesses do business or how they solve business challenges,

helping small businesses grow,

or otherwise impacting small businesses in a significant way.

Says Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends and one of the co-founders of the Awards, “Influencers are those who play crucial roles in the small business ecosystem, but who often are in the background. The Top 100 Champions have distinguished themselves in some way. Check out the Cisco Award. The Small Business Influencer Awards enable the small business community to nominate and show their support for those that influence and support them.

Many network engineers recall the iOS7 update on September 18, 2013 as one of the most historic download days of their network’s history. All the more reason for us in the wireless world who anxiously anticipated the September 17 release of iOS8.

We asked a few of our customers to monitor the effect of the software release on their networks and the results for the first two days are in. Those in the education and healthcare space in particular are filled with early adopters of WiFi technology and devices, and eager to get their hands on the latest updates.

Joe Rogers, Associate Network Director at the University of South Florida shared this picture with us from 1pm September 17th, showing 1 Gbps more traffic than he would normally see at this time of day:

Another customer, Greg Sawyer, Manager of Infrastructure Services, shared this picture of the iOS8 effect on his network at the UNSW Australia.

He noted that his experience handling the release this year felt smoother than last year, despite the new peak internet download of 4.65 Gbps and 21Tb downloaded for the day! Not too surprising when considering that there were 27,000 concurrent connections on the wireless network and approximately 60% of those being Apple devices.

How should organizations be considering and handling these network spikes? I sat down with Cisco technical leaders Matt MacPherson and Chris Spain (@Spain_Chris) to get some insight on the effect of big updates like iOS8 on the wireless network. Here are some of the highlights of what we discussed:

The World We Live In

The truth is, more and more services are being moved to the cloud—a cloud that will push updates to millions & in the future billions of users and devices on our networks. Read More »

The 135 Spanish Steps are perhaps one of the most popular tourist attractions in Rome—and this in a city where your alternatives include stunning options like visiting the Vatican, the Colosseum or the Trevi Fountain. And yet, a visitor to the Spanish Steps today is first—and ahead of any chance to delve into the rich history or architectural heritage of this monumental stairway—forewarned of the dangers of the omnipresent pickpockets that frequent the area! I bring this up because while European vacations may not always be part of our quotidian routine, our daily lives do involve shopping online, visiting our neighborhood retailer or posting updates on social media. And none of these places post enough warning signs urging us to be wary of the virtual pickpockets, waiting to steal and profit from personal, financial and business information that traverses across thousands of transactions at places we visit in person or on our browsers every single day.

As consumers we may even squeeze by with a bit of a lax attitude, but businesses are only painfully aware of the speed, ferocity and variety with which attackers move to try and gain access to critical business data. Our customers tell us that their cybersecurity teams work tirelessly—but often in reactive mode—to fight against breaches and constantly assess ways to eliminate vulnerable links. Today, we are thrilled to share that we’re stepping up to provide our customers and partners with enhanced capabilities to combat the changing nature of threats. Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services integrates the proven Cisco ASA 5500 Series firewall with application control, and the industry-leading Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention Systems (NGIPS) and Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) from Sourcefire in a single device, providing integrated threat defense across the entire attack continuum—before, during and after an attack. Read More »

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